The Runner
by ElevendySeven
Summary: Maggie was good at two things: hockey, and running. When her world begins to crumble, will she be able to stop her speeding feet from carrying her over the edge?


Disclaimer: I own nothing you recognize. Maggie and the plot are mine, any characters or places or mentioned events that you recognize do not belong to me.

Maggie sighed as she stood in the empty, unfamiliar locker room, reminiscing about the locker rooms of the past. First she saw the locker rooms her peewee team had frequented, first as District Five (D-5), and then as the Ducks. She saw the much bigger, better, _cleaner_ locker room she had walked into as a member of Team USA playing in the Junior Goodwill Games, and had walked out of as a victorious USA Duck. This locker room, however, was different.

This locker room held bad memories, even though her very first practice here at Eden Hall had just ended. This locker room was the first in a long time she had entered without her best friend in the entire world, Jesse Hall, by her side. Not only that, but one of the new Ducks, and Bash Brother, Dean Portman hadn't accepted the scholarship. Oh, and they weren't Ducks anymore; they were Warriors.

Goldberg wasn't starting, Julie was. Charlie no longer had his 'C'. Bombay had ditched them and left them here at this school with a new coach. Maggie herself was moved from first line to third. And Adam was promoted to Varsity. Really, they should've been proud of and excited for their teammate. But the Ducks had always handled things the wrong way, and they never took change very well.

The first week was okay. The Ducks JV Warriors did their best to keep Adam in the loop, and everyone tried to adjust to the new coach and his style of coaching. Maggie texted Jesse as often as possible. But then another week passed, and another and another. Adam slowly drifted away, clinging on for as long as he could. The Ducks tried to become Warriors, and continued to fail. Jesse texted back less often. Maggie felt herself starting to lose hope. And then the prank war started. Maggie found some joy in organizing the elaborate schemes, but the novelty wore off quickly.

As she entered her third month at Eden Hall, Maggie realized she hadn't been truly happy in a long time. Adam was never around anymore. She was lucky to exchange twenty five texts with Jesse per week. Hans had passed away. That was when Maggie realized her world was crumbling, and it was crumbling fast. She lay in her dorm at night, thoroughly glad that she had no roommate, struggling to breathe as yet another anxiety attack rolled over her. After a dozen consecutive nights of this, Maggie realized it was time to do one of the things that she did best.

Maggie was good at two things: hockey, and running. Her entire world was crumbling. Hockey wouldn't help her now.

The first Saturday after her realization was when Maggie left. She stole away in the early morning hours, not even bothering to leave a note for her teammates. She ran off campus with her backpack and tore through the city she had called home her entire life. Leaving the deserted streets of early morning Minneapolis, Maggie veered off through the park. She ran right past the old pond, the one they had dubbed 'The Duck Pond', which was highly unusual; typically, whenever any Duck was in the park, new or old, they would stop and pay some form of respect to the spot where the team had started out. She ran right past and straight into the woods, not bothering to stop until she reached the clearing she, Jesse and Peter had claimed as their own all those years ago. Exhausted, Maggie dropped her bag and sank to the ground beneath her favorite tree and curled her knees to her chest, trying to stop the tears that threatened to spill over her eyes and run down her face.

"MAGGIE! MAGGIE, YOU OPEN THIS DOOR RIGHT NOW!" Connie Moreau shouted as she banged on her teammate's door with fear, anger, and desperation clearly evident in her voice.

"Connie, cool it," Fulton Reed tried to soothe the worried girl.

"Fulton, something's wrong. She's not answering her phone, she's not answering her door, and none of us have seen her since last night. Where is Charlie with that spare key?"  
"Relax, Cons, I got it right here." And with that statement, the key was promptly snatched out of the hand of Charlie Conway as he was shoved away from the door.

"Remind me why Charlie has a spare key to all of our dorms again?" Greg Goldberg asked.

"Because he's still captain in our books, and the only one who can keep all of us in line. Orion figured it would work out the best in a scenario like this one. Plus, he's the most responsible and least perverted out of all of you. Well, excluding Dwayne." Julie Gaffney answered him, taking the key from Connie's shaking hand partway through and unlocking the door.

"SHE'S GONE!" The brunette yelled as she pushed past her female teammate, nearly in hysterics. Guy Germaine rolled his eyes and gripped his girlfriend's shoulders.

"Connie, calm down!" He said forcefully.

"Okay! Fulton, call Adam. Averman, call Jesse. Tell him to let Terry know as well. Guy, call Peter. Connie, calm yourself down and call Tammy, have her tell Tommy. Goldberg, call Karp. We're gonna need all the Ducks we can get for this one. Julie, Russ, run and tell Orion that Maggie's gone; make sure you tell him we're handling it the best we can and not to worry for right now. Dwayne, Ken, Luis, take the other spare keys - they're labeled - and get everyone's rollerblades from their rooms. Connie will grab hers and Julie's." Charlie took charge of the situation. Fulton, Guy, Goldberg and Connie pulled out their phones and instantly dialled the numbers they were instructed to; Les Averman took a second to mentally prepare himself to speak to the _best friend_ of the missing Duck before hitting call. Russ Tyler took off, Julie following him seconds later as the pair ran to tell their coach, while Dwayne Robertson, Luis Mendoza and Kenny Wu raced in and out of dorms, making a pile of rollerblades in the hallway. They waited until Adam Banks joined them to make any further progress. They were confused when the Duck-Turned-Varsity was accompanied by a tall, muscular senior with blonde hair and piercing blue eyes.

"Guys, this is Scott Keiran. He's my roommate, and he wants to help find Maggie," the Edina native explained.

"Call me -"

"Scooter. We know." The JV team cut off Adam's roommate, and all of the teens present laughed. Charlie quickly sobered up.

"Okay. Russ, Dwayne, Luis, Ken, Julie, and Scooter, you're gonna stay here. Split into pairs and search the campus. Everyone else, we gotta meet the others at Mickey's."

"Aw, man, why do we have to stay here?" Russ complained.

"Because, we all grew up on the streets of Minneapolis and you didn't. We're wasting time, let's go." Connie replied impatiently. As the larger group began to skate away, Charlie yelled for the others to text if someone found Maggie.

The larger group split into pairs, but one Duck went alone. Connie and Guy, Fulton and Terry Hall, Charlie and Dave Karp. Averman and Tammy Duncan, Goldberg and Tommy Duncan, Adam and Jesse Hall. They split up, searching all over Minneapolis for their friend. Peter Mark headed straight to the place he knew Maggie would be. He also went straight past The Duck Pond, and went right into the clearing. He saw the poor girl's shaking body, and knew she had finally broken, even after trying to run. He sat beside her and wrapped an arm around her.

"Oh, what's wrong Little One?"  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Maggie didn't realize that she wasn't alone until she felt an arm wrap around her and heard a familiar voice.

"Oh, what's wrong Little One?"

Maggie buried her face into the boy's chest and let the tears stream down her face. She felt her former teammate pull out his phone and send a text, probably telling the Ducks he had found her and not to worry.

"C'mon now. You've done your crying, let's get down to business."  
"Peter, everything's wrong. Adam's playing for varsity, I'm on the third line, Portman didn't come, Hans is gone, Bombay left us, Jesse's _sick_ …" Maggie stopped there, realizing the secret she had just told. Peter ignored her slip-up, gently soothing me and reassuring me. "Peter, I'm having anxiety attacks every night again. I just can't take this anymore, I really can't." Peter suddenly realized Maggie had a bag with her. He slowly emptied the contents and then looked at Maggie in disappointment. He stood up, pulled the girl off of the ground and put the backpack on Maggie's back before lifting her onto his and rollerblading out of the clearing. They stopped at The Duck Pond this time, standing there for longer than usual, before continuing to Eden Hall.

Everyone was in Maggie's dorm waiting for them. All of the Ducks-Turned-JV Warriors, Dave Karp, Jesse and Terry Hall, Tammy and Tommy Duncan, and Adam and even Scooter Keiran - hell, even Portman was there over Skype. But Maggie paid no attention to them and simply jumped off of Peter's back, the backpack falling off of hers and to the ground, and launched herself into Jesse's arms, her eyes filling with tears again. He gently soothed her, only releasing Maggie when they both had enough control over their emotions for him to do so.

"Maggie, what the hell! You can't just do something like that! Do you have any idea what you put us through? Connie was hysterical, Scooter was worried enough to come help us, Jesse was worried sick, and even Portman was worried, even more so since he can't actually help!" With every word Charlie spoke Maggie felt worse and worse, to the point that she was crying again. Maggie was overcome with extreme guilt, but also anger towards her friends for not realizing she wasn't okay.

"What the hell? What the _hell_? What the hell to you, Charlie Conway! You should've expected this. Have you not noticed the declination of my mental, emotional and physical condition over the last few weeks? You're not the only one struggling, Charlie. The best coach we ever had ditched us, one of my favorite people on this team was moved to a different one, one of our players stayed back home -no offense Dean - and the only nonabusive parental figure I've EVER KNOWN is DEAD! You're not the only one having problems. I've had anxiety attacks for the last twelve nights, wondering what's gonna happen next; who's gonna leave, whether it'll be forced or by choice, hell, whether it'll be _me_. And then there's the whole Jesse situation, and the struggles of growing up and high school and academics and all that shit. So don't you go yelling at me, Charlie Conway, because you didn't even know HALF of what's happening in my life until now!" Maggie yelled until she got all of her anger and frustration out, and ended up standing there panting for breath. She collapsed into a sitting position on the edge of her bed and put her head in her hands, hating herself for saying half of the things that had just come out of her mouth.

"Guys," Peter cut into the thick silence left in the room. "Look." He unzipped the backpack and turned it upside down. Numerous bottles of pills fell out, along with a knife and a rope.

"Oh, Mags…" Julie wrapped her arm around the poor girl, doing her best to soothe the sobs. "It'll get better, I promise. It always does. It has to get worse before it gets any better."  
"I don't want it to get any worse," Maggie choked out. "It can't, it's not allowed to. It just… It can't." Connie and Tammy started to assist Julie in calming the crying teen, but something else had caught Fulton's attention.

"Jesse, what did Maggie mean when she said 'the whole Jesse situation'?" Jesse sighed; he had avoided telling them until now. He wasn't mad at Maggie, he knew he'd have had to do it at some point anyway. In fact, he was kind of glad she had slipped up.

"About two months before we were supposed to start at Eden Hall, I started having a really bad cough. It got to the point where I was coughing up blood. We went to the emergency room, and poof! I was diagnosed with tuberculosis. I hadn't signed the contract yet, and since I was sick Eden Hall was entirely out of the question. The tuberculosis is gone, so don't worry about catching anything, but lung cancer has taken its place." Jesse was soon being comforted by all of the people packed into the small dormitory also, and eventually most of them left. Charlie pulled Maggie into the hallway for a second before letting her have some time with Jesse.

"Mags, I'm sorry for yelling at you. I had no idea…"  
"Charlie, it's alright. I get it." Charlie flashed her a sheepish grin before going back to his dorm, finally letting the girl talk to her best friend alone.

Only they didn't talk. The two sat there in a comforting silence, simply enjoying the other's presence. Just before he left, Jesse pulled Maggie into the bathroom along with her backpack. He flushed every single pill down the toilet and threw out the containers before dragging her across the hall to Charlie's room, where everyone else was waiting for them. He silently handed Dwayne the rope before pulling Maggie aside.

"This, you can keep. Only to defend yourself," he told her as be pressed the handle of the knife into her palm.

"Ah, you're only letting me keep this because you're the one who got it for me."

"And that," Jesse chuckled. "But seriously Maggie. It better not happen again."  
"It won't. And you better promise you won't leave me."  
"Only if you promise that you'll stop running and actually talk about your feelings, or at least take out the stress through hockey."  
"Promise."

Maggie screamed in excitement as the puck hit the back of the net. Adam and Portman were back. Goldberg had scored. Charlie was captain again. She was back on first line. And they had just beaten the Varsity team and officially changed the name of the hockey team to the Eden Hall Ducks. She knew her life had skyrocketed from being at rock bottom, and she couldn't be happier

A/N: So the idea for this plot came to me around 11:30 last night. I was typing (and creating an odd search history) until 1:00, so I hope you've enjoyed my sleep deprived writing state. Also, I apologize if it's bad, I typically type in first person and wanted to change it up by typing in third.


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